Emily Rice Published

WVSOM Recognized By CDC For Pandemic Solutions

A red van is seen parked from behind with the back doors open to allow a blue and black wheelchair to board the vehicle.
The West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine was recognized in a CDC report that examines how state and county-level agencies used COVID-19 grants.
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The West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine (WVSOM) was recognized in a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report that examines how state and county-level agencies used the center’s 2021 COVID-19 health disparities grants.

Out of 108 grant awards, totaling $2.25 billion, Greenbrier County’s development of mobile testing units and no-cost medical transportation during the COVID-19 pandemic was one of three programs in the U.S. highlighted in the CDC’s report on rural health access provided by 2021 grants.

Greenbrier County is the second largest county in the state with a population of about 32,400 spread across 1,019 square miles of rural land.

The county also saw one of the state’s highest COVID-19 infection rates with hospitals reaching capacity and health department resources stretched thin.

“A grant like this allows you to bring people in right when COVID-19 is at its worst, and you can’t get out to see folks, but they can now get in to see you and get treatment,” said Don Smith, WVSOM’s communications director. “That made all the difference.”

The CDC’s health disparities grants were designed to be flexible, allowing local health departments to address pandemic-related challenges by building systems that continue to address ongoing health disparities.

“We don’t take solutions to the communities,” Smith said. “We go to the communities and find the problems, and then this grant allowed the flexibility. It didn’t say, ‘You have to do this.’ It said, ‘What are the problems in your community, and how can you fix them?’”

WVSOM and its partners used the grant to develop a solution to the county’s transportation barriers to care.

WVSOM partnered with the Mountain Transit Authority (MTA), Greenbrier County Health Department and Greenbrier County Homeland Security to ease access to reliable transportation and community-located testing services.

“By providing this grant and the flexibility and allowing healthcare professionals in the communities to recognize the problem and then address the problem with a creative solution works,” Smith said. “I think that’s really the success story here, and that everyone in the community, our partners willing to collaborate, work together on a solution, and everyone coming to the table for the greater good.”

The medical transportation program in Greenbrier County is no longer operational.

“The grant did expire, but I think that’s one of the reasons for this report,” Smith said. “They wanted to gather the data, look at it, and see what worked. I think that’s one of the reasons why our program was selected as one of three in the country because they said, ‘This is something that can address problems in the future.’”

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Marshall Health.